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Testosterone and Estrogen: Wondrous Hormones · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, back again on the trip
0:17
Speaker 2: of a lifetime and it's the Three Amigos, the Three Musketeers,
0:21
Speaker 2: the Trace Caballeros. Stuff.
0:24
Speaker 1: That's right, talking about e n t Oi oi oi.
0:30
Speaker 2: Hey, that was pretty good, Chuck. I was not expecting that.
0:34
Speaker 2: Sometimes sometimes there's like a little pause in between you
0:39
Speaker 2: talking and me responding, and it's because I'm just astounded.
0:43
Speaker 2: And that was a good example of that. You did great.
0:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and t Baby, let's do it.
0:49
Speaker 2: Okay. So we're talking today about testosterone estrogen. What people
0:55
Speaker 2: commonly think of are the two hormones, the female hormone
1:01
Speaker 2: the male hormone, and that those are what divides us.
1:05
Speaker 2: The sexes are binary, they're bisexual, there's male, there's female.
1:09
Speaker 2: Gender is a totally different topic, as we'll talk about
1:13
Speaker 2: a little bit. But if you have a lot of estrogen,
1:16
Speaker 2: you're female, a lot of testosterone, you're a male, and
1:19
Speaker 2: it turns out that we can trace that that's all
1:22
Speaker 2: like generally incorrect. It's such a such a broad stroke
1:27
Speaker 2: explanation of estrogen and testosterone that it actually has tripped
1:32
Speaker 2: us up all this time. And just from researching this, Chuck,
1:36
Speaker 2: I learned like, wow, this is if we had just
1:38
Speaker 2: never considered estrogen female in testosterone male, I think our
1:43
Speaker 2: general understanding of those two hormones would be so much deeper.
1:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's one of those things where we can
1:49
Speaker 3: trace back to a time where that sort of whole
1:54
Speaker 3: notion came from. And of course, you know, it's early science.
1:57
Speaker 3: They were trying to figure stuff out. But starting about
2:00
Speaker 3: the mid nineteenth century is when scientists started kind of
2:03
Speaker 3: going wild with animals and organs and doing things like, hey, rat,
2:12
Speaker 3: let me remove your testicles and let me put some
2:15
Speaker 3: ovaries in you and see what happens.
2:18
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of this going on.
2:19
Speaker 3: There was a British physiologist named Ernest Starling who actually
2:23
Speaker 3: coined the word hormone from the Greek word to excite
2:26
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh five. And this is sort of right
2:29
Speaker 3: around that time in the early nineteen hundreds, when there
2:32
Speaker 3: were other scientists and physiologists doing all kinds of wacky
2:36
Speaker 3: experiments to see what happened.
2:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should say hormones are simply chemical messengers
2:41
Speaker 2: that basically relay messages and trigger responses or keep responses
2:46
Speaker 2: from happening in the body, and that estrogen and testosterone
2:50
Speaker 2: are two kinds of hormones, specifically steroid hormones, meaning they're
2:54
Speaker 2: made from cholesterol, which for some reason I find really.
2:57
Speaker 3: Gross, so well, you might find this gross too. Then
3:04
Speaker 3: there's an Austrian named Eugene Steinach who was doing these
3:08
Speaker 3: kinds of experiments that I was just talking about, and
3:11
Speaker 3: he was saying, like, came here, frog, let me poke
3:14
Speaker 3: around your testicles and get some liquid out of there.
3:17
Speaker 3: Let me, like I said earlier, let me take this rat,
3:20
Speaker 3: let me castrate it, let me transplant some ovaries onto
3:23
Speaker 3: this rat, and then observe what happens. And Steinach was
3:27
Speaker 3: one of those early scientists who kind of led to
3:29
Speaker 3: this sort of binary idea that you know, if you
3:37
Speaker 3: do this, you're going to feminize a rat, or you're
3:39
Speaker 3: going to masculinize a rat if you do that.
3:40
Speaker 1: Sort of the vice versa operation.
3:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, but very very quickly there were people even back
3:45
Speaker 3: then scientists that were like, oh, wait a minute, this
3:48
Speaker 3: is it's not quite as binary as you're making it
3:51
Speaker 3: out to be. And there's plenty of examples and reasons why.
3:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could almost lay the entire problem at the
3:56
Speaker 2: feet of Eugene Steinach. That he was the one who
3:59
Speaker 2: basically said that humans are bisexual as how we put it,
4:02
Speaker 2: binary sexes male female, and it depends on whether you
4:06
Speaker 2: have testosterone or estrogen. And like you said, he got pushedback.
4:10
Speaker 2: There was one guy in particular, an embryologist named Carl Moore,
4:13
Speaker 2: who was like, hey, Steinick, stop and think about what
4:16
Speaker 2: you're saying here, Like, even without your you know, mad
4:20
Speaker 2: scientist experiments, female rats do all sorts of like quote
4:25
Speaker 2: male behaviors and vice versa. And even with your flip
4:30
Speaker 2: flop you know, overreason gonad rats, they're still doing behaviors
4:35
Speaker 2: that are are not easily assigned to one sex or
4:40
Speaker 2: the other. So I'm not one hundred percent sure that
4:43
Speaker 2: it's quite as cut and dry as you you have
4:46
Speaker 2: have explained it. And Eugene Steinach had Carl Moore murdered silence.
4:52
Speaker 1: Forever not true at least I don't think it is.
4:58
Speaker 2: I hope, okay, I just.
4:59
Speaker 3: Tho you might have just leaned in with a pillow
5:01
Speaker 3: and gave him the forever Hugin.
5:03
Speaker 2: That's right.
5:04
Speaker 3: So flashing forward a little bit too, about the turn
5:08
Speaker 3: of the twentieth century is when research got a little
5:10
Speaker 3: more serious about it, and they found that extracts from
5:15
Speaker 3: your ovaries could have beneficial treatments for things like hot
5:19
Speaker 3: flashes during menopause, and it could stimulate what's called estros,
5:23
Speaker 3: which is where the word estrogen comes from. But estris
5:26
Speaker 3: is like when an animal is in heat. If you've
5:29
Speaker 3: ever seen a cat or something or a dog in heat,
5:32
Speaker 3: it's pretty clear that something different is going on, right,
5:36
Speaker 3: And that word estrogen in nineteen oh six comes from
5:41
Speaker 3: that word estrus, which is from the Greek word oystros,
5:46
Speaker 3: which means mad desire.
5:47
Speaker 2: It also sounds like a brand of.
5:49
Speaker 1: Yogurt oysters, Yeah, oystros. Yeah.
5:53
Speaker 2: So once these guys like this is the beginning of
5:56
Speaker 2: the twentieth century, very late nineteenth but mostly the first
5:59
Speaker 2: couple decades of the twentieth century, scientists are starting to
6:02
Speaker 2: isolate hormones, and in particular sex hormones, and they're like, well,
6:06
Speaker 2: what happens if you give them to humans? Now forget
6:09
Speaker 2: the frogs and rats and all that stuff. And what
6:12
Speaker 2: they figured out very quickly is like you said, they
6:14
Speaker 2: like menopause have been around for a while, and they're like, well,
6:17
Speaker 2: women have menopause and estrogen seems to be the woman's
6:20
Speaker 2: sex hormone. Let's give them estrogen and see what happens.
6:24
Speaker 2: And it actually had a pretty beneficial effect. It's been
6:28
Speaker 2: long known that estrogen given as like a drug can
6:34
Speaker 2: treat symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes and stuff. And
6:37
Speaker 2: the first estrogen, I guess prescription drug. It's called premarin,
6:43
Speaker 2: which says like a perfectly legitimate, big pharma sound to it, right, Premarin.
6:52
Speaker 2: That's a great name for a drug. But it's even
6:54
Speaker 2: better if you know what it stands for.
6:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is well should we say when it
6:59
Speaker 3: stands say what it is and then what it stands for.
7:03
Speaker 2: I think you can do both simultaneously.
7:05
Speaker 1: Actually, well, it's not a synthetic estrogen.
7:09
Speaker 3: It was actually a natural isolated estrogen derived from the
7:15
Speaker 3: urine of a pregnant horse. So premarin stood for pre
7:20
Speaker 3: pregnant mayor mayor and the end from urine, so pre
7:25
Speaker 3: maren pregnant horse urine.
7:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was I believe this is nineteen thirty nine.
7:30
Speaker 3: It was made of like ten different estrogens and was
7:33
Speaker 3: available commercially in the US just a few years later,
7:36
Speaker 3: and by nineteen ninety two was the highest selling drug
7:40
Speaker 3: in the United States.
7:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to have a good idea of
7:44
Speaker 2: just how crazy the pharmaceutical market has become in the US,
7:49
Speaker 2: Premarin was the I think you said, the most prescribed
7:54
Speaker 2: drug in the US.
7:56
Speaker 3: Well, the best selling I guess sho would match. Yeah,
7:59
Speaker 3: the hit single exactly.
8:01
Speaker 2: So this hit single, Premarin in nineteen ninety seven had
8:05
Speaker 2: revenues of one billion dollars. Pretty not shabby. It'd be
8:09
Speaker 2: about two billion dollars today. Humera, the second best selling
8:13
Speaker 2: drug in twenty twenty two, had revenues of twenty one
8:16
Speaker 2: billion dollars. In that nuts like, that's that's just night
8:21
Speaker 2: and day compared to how far we've I guess how
8:24
Speaker 2: far we've come. It's one way to put it. But
8:27
Speaker 2: the upsot is premar in was it was a lifesaver.
8:30
Speaker 2: Men were like, hey, I'd like you to be sexually available.
8:34
Speaker 2: Why don't you take this horse, you're in estrogen, And
8:36
Speaker 2: when we were like, it solves my hot flash problems
8:39
Speaker 2: sold so it actually, it really was very popular for
8:43
Speaker 2: a while, and it wasn't until I think two thousand
8:46
Speaker 2: and two that it just dropped off precipitously.
8:48
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And we should mention too that this was
8:52
Speaker 3: you know, it was obviously for things like hot flashes,
8:54
Speaker 3: but they were also marketing it as a way to
8:57
Speaker 3: maintain femininity as you age, none other than William Masters
9:02
Speaker 3: of Masters in Johnson's Fame Sex Crime. They said that
9:06
Speaker 3: women should use the drug to avoid falling into the
9:09
Speaker 3: third sex or the neutral gender, which is very off base,
9:14
Speaker 3: to say the least. But yeah, in two thousand and two,
9:17
Speaker 3: things change because there was the Women's Tell Initiative released
9:22
Speaker 3: a study about attitudes that that really like changed everything
9:28
Speaker 3: when it comes to how women or people in general
9:30
Speaker 3: think of hormone therapy when they said that it can
9:34
Speaker 3: cause breast cancer, heart disease, blood clots, and stroke if
9:39
Speaker 3: you take what was called by this time prim pro
9:42
Speaker 3: which was Primaran and pro Vera as a you know,
9:45
Speaker 3: sort of a cocktail. And they they minute so much
9:49
Speaker 3: they said, we're even stopping this study. But it turns
9:52
Speaker 3: out there was just a lot of bad reporting about that, right.
9:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a New York Times magazine article about menopause
9:57
Speaker 2: by a writer named Susan Dominus, who basically reported that
10:04
Speaker 2: the media just jumped all over it. There's like, there's
10:06
Speaker 2: a twenty six percent increased risk in developing breast cancer
10:10
Speaker 2: if you take Prempro or generally have hormone replacement therapy,
10:15
Speaker 2: and that's whopping. That's a big, a big number, a
10:18
Speaker 2: big percentage. But in absolute numbers, it's actually not that big.
10:23
Speaker 2: So the average woman had a two point three to
10:26
Speaker 2: three percent chance of developing breast cancer. If you took Prempro,
10:30
Speaker 2: you had a two point nine to nine percent chance,
10:33
Speaker 2: So like that was your twenty six percent increase, And
10:35
Speaker 2: in real terms, it sorted out to, based on the
10:38
Speaker 2: population at the time, an additional eight women developing breast
10:42
Speaker 2: cancer out of every ten thousand who were taking replacement hormones.
10:46
Speaker 2: Nothing to sneeze at those eight women. I'm sure would
10:48
Speaker 2: much rather prefer not to have breast cancer. But the
10:51
Speaker 2: point was the risks of it were grossly overstated, and
10:55
Speaker 2: that it got but it got such a bad rap
10:58
Speaker 2: because of the reporting that for a couple of decades,
11:00
Speaker 2: just trust and hormone replacement therapy dropped off and a
11:03
Speaker 2: lot of women suffered unnecessarily as a result.
11:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think they didn't even find that the
11:10
Speaker 3: transdermal variety was in fact much safer than the other
11:14
Speaker 3: way of taking it.
11:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so, Like if you take it orally, which
11:18
Speaker 2: is what it was always before, pretty much it has
11:21
Speaker 2: to go through your liver to be processed, and while
11:23
Speaker 2: it's there it can do all sorts of nasty stuff
11:25
Speaker 2: side effects that you don't really want, like causing thrombosis
11:29
Speaker 2: and blood clots, it can lead to heart disease, whereas
11:31
Speaker 2: if you do it transdermally, it just enters the bloodstream
11:34
Speaker 2: and it does its thing with minimal side effects. So
11:37
Speaker 2: we've reached the point today where your average kind of
11:40
Speaker 2: coologists is probably going to say the benefits if you're
11:44
Speaker 2: healthy outweigh the risk of taking it, especially if you
11:49
Speaker 2: are under age sixty, and especially if you're under age
11:53
Speaker 2: seventy and you start apparently there's a if you have
11:57
Speaker 2: a gap between menopause and then start hormone replacement therapy
12:01
Speaker 2: of a decade or two, then it can become pretty risky.
12:05
Speaker 2: And by the way, I don't have my lab code
12:07
Speaker 2: on right now, I would advise you not to take
12:09
Speaker 2: gecological health advice from me. Instead, ask your doctor. But
12:13
Speaker 2: this is what I've seen from research.
12:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that, I mean you say that virtually every
12:18
Speaker 3: time you meet someone in person. I've heard you say
12:20
Speaker 3: those same words.
12:21
Speaker 2: I'm big on that for sure.
12:23
Speaker 3: Say Hi, Josh, nice to meet you. I dude, stuff
12:25
Speaker 3: you should know. Please don't take onecological advice for me. Yeah,
12:28
Speaker 3: no matter what comes out of my mouth at this
12:30
Speaker 3: dinner part.
12:31
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just a smart thing to say.
12:33
Speaker 1: It is.
12:34
Speaker 3: So this is all going on on the ester's in side,
12:39
Speaker 3: on the testosterone side, and we're gonna, you know, kind
12:41
Speaker 3: of bop back and forth between.
12:43
Speaker 1: The two of these.
12:45
Speaker 3: That was isolated, I believe in nineteen thirty five. In fact,
12:50
Speaker 3: that's when the name testosterone got its name, which is
12:52
Speaker 3: sort of the big daddy mail hormone.
12:54
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about all the versions of these in
12:56
Speaker 1: a second.
12:57
Speaker 3: And on its own, testosterone, you know, wasn't doing very much.
13:02
Speaker 3: But when they added estrone, which is a quote unquote
13:05
Speaker 3: female hormone, it became very powerful. And in nineteen thirty nine,
13:10
Speaker 3: there were a couple of guys dude, name I guess
13:13
Speaker 3: one guy, sorry, Leopold Ruska. Oh no, no, there were
13:17
Speaker 3: two guys and Adolph Butenant of Germany. They won the
13:22
Speaker 3: Nobel Prize for chemistry by working on largely testosterone, but
13:28
Speaker 3: you know sex hormones as a whole. And none other
13:31
Speaker 3: than mister Adolf Hitler was one of the early adopters
13:35
Speaker 3: when it came to a testosterone treatment.
13:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had low tit.
13:40
Speaker 2: I meant to send you this, and I'm sorry I didn't,
13:43
Speaker 2: but I turned up something that there was in British
13:47
Speaker 2: World War two military files. There were like a bunch
13:51
Speaker 2: of ideas of how to like basically take neutralized Hitler,
13:55
Speaker 2: and one of them was to start slipping estrogen into
13:58
Speaker 2: his food and that over time it would basically turn
14:02
Speaker 2: him from a maniac, murderous killer psycho to maybe a
14:08
Speaker 2: little calmer, maybe a little more feminized. And the whole
14:12
Speaker 2: idea was that if you put poison in his food,
14:15
Speaker 2: he had tasters, and the tasters would die from the
14:18
Speaker 2: poison and he would know that he was being poisoned.
14:20
Speaker 2: That would not happen with estrogen. It would take place
14:22
Speaker 2: over such a long time they wouldn't be able to
14:24
Speaker 2: taste it that that apparently it was never even attempted,
14:28
Speaker 2: or certainly not carried out, but that was someone's idea
14:31
Speaker 2: to take care of Hitler. It would have been hilarious, dude,
14:35
Speaker 2: to see that transition, like had they done that, and
14:38
Speaker 2: then just to be able to look back all these
14:40
Speaker 2: years later and watch the progression.
14:43
Speaker 3: There's a Benny Hill sketch in there somewhere, for sure,
14:46
Speaker 3: I think so.
14:47
Speaker 2: So.
14:47
Speaker 3: Initially, medically speaking, the first use of testosterone was to
14:52
Speaker 3: try and cure homosexuality in males, which was a needless
14:58
Speaker 3: to say, it spectacularly back fired because all it did was,
15:03
Speaker 3: you know, it didn't alter any orientation. It just created
15:07
Speaker 3: I guess super tops and power bottoms and ramped up
15:10
Speaker 3: to sex drive. And then of course trans people. This
15:14
Speaker 3: was you know, very early in the days of hormone
15:17
Speaker 3: therapy for trans people. It was actually going on, and
15:20
Speaker 3: in fact, we did a whole episode in April twenty
15:24
Speaker 3: nineteen called Michael Dillon Trans Pioneer about the Englishman who
15:28
Speaker 3: was I mean, I think probably the first person at
15:33
Speaker 3: least from the female to male transition to use that
15:36
Speaker 3: hormone in nineteen forty.
15:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it definitely was from what we could tell.
15:40
Speaker 3: And by the way, if you go back and listen
15:42
Speaker 3: to that episode, if you're like, oh my goodness.
15:44
Speaker 1: We heard from listeners.
15:45
Speaker 3: We goofed up the pronouns on that one because we thought,
15:49
Speaker 3: and this is five years ago, we know better now,
15:51
Speaker 3: but we thought it would be a good idea to
15:53
Speaker 3: sort of let the pronouns follow the journey of Michael
15:58
Speaker 3: Dillon's life. And you know, we know better now, So
16:01
Speaker 3: just take that with a grain of salt.
16:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, kid, co. And while we're on that, we should
16:05
Speaker 2: probably say we're using male and female and man and
16:09
Speaker 2: woman just generally a shorthand, a biological shorthand. With the
16:15
Speaker 2: advent of trans people, there there's a much more specific
16:18
Speaker 2: way of talking about that. Specifically, we would we should
16:23
Speaker 2: be saying typically developing assigned male at birth or assigned
16:27
Speaker 2: female at birth, people who haven't altered their hormones. Right,
16:32
Speaker 2: that's tough to say over and over again, rather than
16:34
Speaker 2: man or woman. So please forgive us for that. We're
16:38
Speaker 2: not we're not being disrespectful in that way, and we're
16:39
Speaker 2: certainly not excluding trans people from this, because this very
16:42
Speaker 2: much has a lot to do with trans.
16:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well you know that'll come in part too, obviously.
16:48
Speaker 2: For sure. I say we take a break and come
16:50
Speaker 2: back and we'll start talking about estrogen.
16:53
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
17:14
Speaker 3: All right, So we're back with estrogen. Welcome to the studio, estrogen.
17:19
Speaker 3: How have you been doing so? That is, usually you
17:23
Speaker 3: think of estrogen as one of the two female sex
17:26
Speaker 3: hormones with progesterone, and it is actually a family of
17:31
Speaker 3: three hormones, the first one being estrone, and that is
17:35
Speaker 3: the that's not the money estrogen, that's the weakest one menopause.
17:41
Speaker 3: You know, it keeps getting produced through menopause. It's made
17:44
Speaker 3: in the adrenal glands, it's made in the ovaries, it's
17:47
Speaker 3: made in fatty tissue, and it can actually serve as
17:50
Speaker 3: a sort of a warehouse keeping place for estrogen.
17:55
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, for sure. So here's where we get to
17:58
Speaker 2: the idea that it's just misguided. Think estrogen is a
18:01
Speaker 2: woman's sex hormone and that's it. There's so much more
18:04
Speaker 2: to it. The whole reason you would continue producing estrogen
18:07
Speaker 2: as a woman in some form or fashion after menopause.
18:11
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're not having sex, if you can't
18:13
Speaker 2: reproduce any longer, why would you produce estrogen? You would
18:16
Speaker 2: produce a weaker version because it's still doing other things
18:19
Speaker 2: like it's really important for bone growth and muscle development
18:23
Speaker 2: and to keep yourself active. There's a lot of stuff
18:26
Speaker 2: that estrogen does just beyond forming the reproductive system or
18:34
Speaker 2: for sexing females.
18:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we also did mention and this is probably
18:39
Speaker 3: if someone wants more quote unquote proof. Estrogen is found
18:42
Speaker 3: in plants like rice.
18:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we could just end the podcast right here.
18:49
Speaker 1: Testosterone is not found in plants, only in the animal world.
18:51
Speaker 3: But we'll get to that, all right. The next one
18:53
Speaker 3: we come to that was E one. By the way,
18:55
Speaker 3: E two is estra diol, which is this is the estrogen.
19:00
Speaker 3: This is the potent one. This is made in the
19:03
Speaker 3: ovaries of women and made in the testes of men.
19:07
Speaker 3: Once again, men and women both have each in different levels.
19:12
Speaker 3: And this is the one that really like kicks in
19:14
Speaker 3: during puberty and then takes a break during menopause. Not
19:19
Speaker 3: a break but more like a retirement.
19:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it goes to Florida.
19:24
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
19:25
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah Flora for once. I'm just gonna stick with
19:29
Speaker 2: my original one. Good Astriol is another one. This one
19:34
Speaker 2: is mostly produced during pregnancy to help the uterus grow,
19:39
Speaker 2: and it also helps with breastfeedings. It leads to most
19:44
Speaker 2: of the body changes during pregnancy. You can thank estriol
19:47
Speaker 2: for that. And there are other types of estrogen, but
19:50
Speaker 2: typically it's those three. Those are the big ones. And
19:53
Speaker 2: it's obviously everyone knows estrogen is the reason that you
19:57
Speaker 2: have breasts and that your hips fill out, and that
20:00
Speaker 2: it has a lot to do with a woman's monthly cycle, right,
20:04
Speaker 2: And that's absolutely true. That has a lot to do
20:06
Speaker 2: with everything, like that's what estrogen does. But it is
20:09
Speaker 2: again it's important for metabolizing muscles, for preventing your muscles
20:15
Speaker 2: from injury. It also contributes to endurance, which if you
20:20
Speaker 2: read about ultra marathons, women tend to dominate those I
20:24
Speaker 2: was reading about, Like short runs, men can outrun women
20:28
Speaker 2: very easily. Marathons typically men win. But then as you
20:32
Speaker 2: get further and further and further, and actually there's a
20:35
Speaker 2: moment I think it's like like one hundred and fifty
20:39
Speaker 2: miles or some mind boggling amount of distance, women start
20:43
Speaker 2: to slowly overtake men. And then the longer you go,
20:46
Speaker 2: the further ahead, women finish before men in tests of
20:52
Speaker 2: endurance like that, and they think it's because they have
20:54
Speaker 2: higher stores of estrogen, which is helping their muscles work better.
20:59
Speaker 3: So you talked about good for like you know, muscle
21:02
Speaker 3: growth and muscle formation. Sure, Also estrogen can help facilitate
21:07
Speaker 3: brain activity, skin elasticity, which you know, is that why
21:14
Speaker 3: like wrinkles happen as you age? Is that because of
21:17
Speaker 3: drop and among other things in estrogen?
21:20
Speaker 2: I would think so. I think it's also just they've
21:22
Speaker 2: been around the block so many times, like skin, I mean.
21:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So if you're a doctor, doctor Clark.
21:31
Speaker 2: Well, no, okay, why am I?
21:34
Speaker 3: Why am I going wrinkley around the eyes here? What's
21:37
Speaker 3: going on with physiologically with my body? You know, it's
21:39
Speaker 3: been around the block?
21:41
Speaker 1: What more? What more can I say? And also, don't
21:43
Speaker 1: take any gynecological advice from me.
21:46
Speaker 2: Right, I'd be like, I thought you're a dermantologist. Oh
21:48
Speaker 2: I'm neither.
21:49
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
21:50
Speaker 3: So estrogen is something that can affect mood, but you
21:54
Speaker 3: know it's it fluctuates. I think pre menopausal women have
22:00
Speaker 3: a range of about thirty to forty pikeograms per mili liter,
22:05
Speaker 3: But it varies from person to person. And then like
22:08
Speaker 3: we said, it rises and falls during the menstrual cycle.
22:11
Speaker 3: It's not like a set number. I think Postman Apostle
22:15
Speaker 3: that drops all the way down from literally zero to thirty.
22:20
Speaker 1: And then for.
22:21
Speaker 3: Men, for guys like you and me, yeah, we have
22:23
Speaker 3: a range of about ten to fifty. I'm probably more
22:26
Speaker 3: like fifty five or sixty would be my guess.
22:30
Speaker 2: So I'm right there with you, buddy. So again, the
22:33
Speaker 2: reason why men would have it at all is because
22:35
Speaker 2: it's not just the woman's sex a female sex hormone.
22:39
Speaker 2: It does other stuff. Just I can't say this enough
22:42
Speaker 2: because it was such a sure you can like it,
22:45
Speaker 2: It was such an epiphany for me. I'm just like, Oh,
22:49
Speaker 2: I had no idea that it was this, that things
22:52
Speaker 2: overlap this much. Yeah, I mean I didn't think it
22:55
Speaker 2: was just like cut and dry, but I knew there
22:57
Speaker 2: was some crossover, but I didn't realize just how much
23:00
Speaker 2: Steinbach screwed us up with that whole binary thing.
23:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:05
Speaker 3: I was trying to make a joke about a pop
23:07
Speaker 3: act that crossed over, but I couldn't come up with it.
23:11
Speaker 1: Just, uh, someone send in a good joke there.
23:13
Speaker 2: How about Bay Bay Beyonce in the country.
23:17
Speaker 1: I heard about that, did you hear it? Is it good? Yeah?
23:20
Speaker 2: It's fine. I'm not huge in the country.
23:23
Speaker 1: So it's real country then, huh.
23:25
Speaker 2: No, it's like dance floor line dancing hunt. Yeah, sure
23:30
Speaker 2: it is real country. Yes, but it's not like it's
23:33
Speaker 2: not like Hank or anything like that. But it's like
23:35
Speaker 2: a it's more like Garth. It's like a Garth Brooks song.
23:38
Speaker 1: Oh geez, I need to hear it.
23:39
Speaker 3: I thought it was more just like Hi and Beyonce
23:42
Speaker 3: and I put on a cowboy hat.
23:43
Speaker 2: So now, no, she's from Texas. You know she knows
23:45
Speaker 2: what she's talking about.
23:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Can we talk about the Big.
23:49
Speaker 2: Don't please don't quote me on that. I'm not in
23:51
Speaker 2: the bay Hive.
23:53
Speaker 1: Okay, I went to that concert. Was great.
23:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll bet. Can we talk about the Big t
24:00
Speaker 2: Oh we're here? Huh yeah.
24:02
Speaker 3: I mean we're going to go back and forth. But
24:04
Speaker 3: T needs to he needs this tea is ready to speak.
24:06
Speaker 2: I think before we do, I want to say one
24:08
Speaker 2: other thing about estrogen. It apparently encourages physical movement, and
24:12
Speaker 2: you're like, so like with low estrogen, your will to
24:17
Speaker 2: get up and move or walk across the room or
24:20
Speaker 2: go take a walk is depleted because your estrogen is lower.
24:25
Speaker 2: It's as simple as that Isn't that nuts? Yeah, that's cool.
24:29
Speaker 2: So yes, now we're on to tea.
24:31
Speaker 1: That's right, the male hormone in.
24:35
Speaker 2: Part, Yes, and that's no joke. Like, for sure, estrogen
24:39
Speaker 2: helps form females, Testosterone helps form males, and apparently in
24:47
Speaker 2: the uterus they're both exposed to copious amounts of testosterone.
24:52
Speaker 2: It's just what differentiates females from males or keeps females
24:56
Speaker 2: from developing into males. Because I didn't know this either, Chuck.
25:00
Speaker 2: We all start out as females. Did you know that.
25:04
Speaker 1: I think we talked about that in our puberty episode.
25:06
Speaker 2: Okay, so just bear with me for a second. We
25:08
Speaker 2: all start out as females, and then we're all we're
25:12
Speaker 2: all kind of inundated with testosterone. But females typically have
25:17
Speaker 2: something called aromatase, which is an enzyme that converts testosterone
25:21
Speaker 2: into estrogen much more prevalent in the feed in the
25:26
Speaker 2: placenta with the fetus, and so it's basically like batting
25:29
Speaker 2: away all the testosterone. So the baby comes out assigned
25:33
Speaker 2: female at birth. Pretty interesting, huh. Like without the injection
25:37
Speaker 2: of testosterone, we would all be females or without the
25:40
Speaker 2: presence of aromatase, we would all be males.
25:44
Speaker 1: That's right.
25:45
Speaker 3: And then once things are you know, I guess what
25:47
Speaker 3: that's around the seventh week or.
25:49
Speaker 2: So, yeah, something like that.
25:51
Speaker 1: That's when the testicles start to produce testosterone. That's when the.
25:54
Speaker 3: Factory opens up. And I don't think we mentioned, but
25:58
Speaker 3: testosterone is a member of a family of androgen hormones. Uh,
26:04
Speaker 3: boy to should we even try and say these or
26:06
Speaker 3: just say the shorthand? I want to say them, knock
26:09
Speaker 3: yourself out?
26:10
Speaker 2: Uh andros stenny dione then I practiced and st andres
26:17
Speaker 2: steno dione.
26:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right.
26:19
Speaker 2: D hydro epi andros sterone also known as dh A sure,
26:24
Speaker 2: d hydro epi androsterone sulfate d h A, yes, and
26:29
Speaker 2: then dihydro testosterone d h T.
26:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nice work.
26:33
Speaker 3: Thanks, you get to move on in our medical competition.
26:37
Speaker 2: You could be a doctor, but but I'm not. So
26:40
Speaker 2: don't that's forgotten logical.
26:42
Speaker 1: Advice, never never or any medical advice.
26:45
Speaker 3: Uh So, Like I said, the test testosterone factory is
26:49
Speaker 3: open at about seven weeks. And the reason we went
26:52
Speaker 3: back and kind of named the others is because some
26:54
Speaker 3: of that testosterone at that age is converted into the dhea. Right, yeah,
27:03
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say it. And that is the sort
27:07
Speaker 3: of the money hormone for making the penis form and
27:11
Speaker 3: grow in the prostate. And about seven months in is
27:15
Speaker 3: when the trigger is kicked off by testosterone for testicular descent.
27:21
Speaker 3: Even though that can happen after you're born.
27:23
Speaker 2: It makes it hilarious. Beew sound.
27:26
Speaker 1: Oh man, where's your slide whistle?
27:28
Speaker 2: I don't have it on me. Maybe gerial'll work it in.
27:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you actually isolated some slide whistle cuts,
27:35
Speaker 3: so don't.
27:36
Speaker 2: Tell everybody I know. Here's one of the facts of
27:40
Speaker 2: the podcast. To me. I had no idea about this.
27:43
Speaker 2: But so male babies are flooded with testosterone. They don't
27:48
Speaker 2: have a bunch of aromatase to convert all of it
27:51
Speaker 2: into estrogen, so they become male and all the stuff
27:55
Speaker 2: that you just mentioned happens. But they do have some aromatase,
28:00
Speaker 2: and some of that testosterone is converted into estra diol,
28:03
Speaker 2: and that estra dial actually is what forms the male brain.
28:09
Speaker 2: So estrogen forms the male brain starts out as testosterone
28:13
Speaker 2: converted into estratiol. It causes the changes in the brain
28:17
Speaker 2: that create.
28:18
Speaker 1: The male brain whatever, snowflake.
28:21
Speaker 2: I just think that's awesome. Like it also just goes
28:25
Speaker 2: to show you, like just how so, I mean, just
28:28
Speaker 2: imagine what an intricate chemical dance this is and how Yeah,
28:33
Speaker 2: you just adjust this a little bit and adjust that
28:35
Speaker 2: a little bit and all sorts of different outcomes can happen.
28:37
Speaker 2: It's just fascinating, Oh for sure.
28:40
Speaker 3: I mean, when you're a little kid, there's not a
28:43
Speaker 3: lot of difference between your testosterone levels. If you're a
28:47
Speaker 3: little girl a little boy, I think usually under ten
28:50
Speaker 3: nanograms per desolators at puberty where things just go hog wild, right,
28:56
Speaker 3: and little boy's testosterone just shoots through the roof. It
29:00
Speaker 3: rises in girls as well, but nothing like it does
29:03
Speaker 3: in boys. Once you become a big man, a full
29:07
Speaker 3: grown man like us, you're gonna have tea levels between
29:11
Speaker 3: three hundred and a thousand, if you know, if you
29:14
Speaker 3: have normal quote unquote normal tea. Women have much lower
29:17
Speaker 3: levels between fifteen and seventy. And this is you know,
29:21
Speaker 3: in little boys, what's gonna trigger your voice to change,
29:25
Speaker 3: your bone and muscle mass to grow. You're you know,
29:29
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, you're gonna have body hair and
29:31
Speaker 3: facial hair and stuff like that. And also, and I
29:34
Speaker 3: think we've talked about this at some point, but it
29:37
Speaker 3: is related to male pattern baldness. But I don't think
29:40
Speaker 3: they're still at the level where they can say like, hey,
29:43
Speaker 3: if you have high tee, then you're more likely to
29:46
Speaker 3: be bald.
29:47
Speaker 2: Yes. And that's really really important to point out, dude,
29:51
Speaker 2: is that we are not at a place in microbiology
29:56
Speaker 2: or human chemistry or we're like, this is what this
29:58
Speaker 2: hormone does, and this is what that hormone and dones.
30:00
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why is because the same
30:02
Speaker 2: hormone can have wildly different effects depending on at what
30:07
Speaker 2: stage in a reaction it comes in, or in what
30:10
Speaker 2: tissues or what regions of the brain or the body
30:13
Speaker 2: it's interacting with other things. So when you add all
30:16
Speaker 2: these different not just other kinds of hormones, but also
30:19
Speaker 2: like neurotransmitters or neuromodulators and all this stuff, it just
30:22
Speaker 2: becomes exponentially more complicated and complex. So we're still kind
30:27
Speaker 2: of at the place where it's like, yeah, testosterones for
30:30
Speaker 2: boys and estrogens for girls, and we're making tons of headway,
30:35
Speaker 2: but generally speaking, we're still at a very basic level
30:38
Speaker 2: and understanding what hormones are capable of. And then also
30:43
Speaker 2: on the flip side, looking at behavior and saying like, oh, well,
30:46
Speaker 2: clearly aggression is related to high levels of testosterone.
30:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll get to that coming up in a
30:53
Speaker 3: sect for short with there been lots of studies, Well,
30:56
Speaker 3: we need to talk about testosterone dropping over the years,
30:59
Speaker 3: because men don't experience like a drop off in testosterone
31:04
Speaker 3: like women do with menopause and estrogen. But it does
31:09
Speaker 3: decline in both men and women testosterone by about a
31:11
Speaker 3: percentage a year starting in your thirties, sort of early
31:16
Speaker 3: to mid thirties generally, although that can vary as well,
31:19
Speaker 3: and it can vary just from time to time too.
31:22
Speaker 3: A man's level of testosterone can go up or down
31:26
Speaker 3: fairly dramatically for different reasons over short periods of time.
31:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just like with estrogen, testosterone is also responsible
31:34
Speaker 2: for bone growth and development in remodeling, apparently, the testosterone
31:38
Speaker 2: is useful for the hard outer layers of the bone
31:42
Speaker 2: and estrogen is for the spongy interior layers. It's cool
31:47
Speaker 2: and also something else that stood out to me is
31:49
Speaker 2: men's estrogen levels are roughly similar to women's testosterone levels
31:55
Speaker 2: under normal circumstances. Yeah, I guess so, right, Yeah, I
31:59
Speaker 2: think it's pretty interest.
32:00
Speaker 1: I think I'm looking at the numbers.
32:01
Speaker 2: Did they add up?
32:03
Speaker 3: Well, you were talking about aggression. I mean, should we
32:07
Speaker 3: take a break and talk about that or should we wait?
32:09
Speaker 2: I say we take a break. Now, we've already the
32:11
Speaker 2: monkey's already flown the.
32:13
Speaker 3: Coup, right, all right, the monkey's out of the bag,
32:16
Speaker 3: the cat is out of the cage.
32:18
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
32:40
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, So we're back. We found the cat, put
32:42
Speaker 2: them in the cradle with the silver spoon, so everything's
32:45
Speaker 2: back to normal.
32:46
Speaker 1: Sad a song?
32:48
Speaker 2: Oh it is? It is pretty said, especially if you
32:49
Speaker 2: like your dad.
32:52
Speaker 1: Especially if you had problems with your dad.
32:54
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I guess so, I guess so.
32:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
32:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is there any circumstance where that wouldn't be a sad?
33:00
Speaker 1: I don't know.
33:01
Speaker 3: Maybe the perfect amount of care and love from your
33:05
Speaker 3: father and with no accompanying.
33:09
Speaker 2: Abuse, gotcha, perfect?
33:11
Speaker 1: I don't know.
33:12
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's very prevalent. Yeah. So, yeah, we're talking
33:15
Speaker 2: about testosterone, we're talking about sex, we're talking about aggression.
33:20
Speaker 2: All of those things seem to be very much intertwined
33:23
Speaker 2: in the public consciousness about testosterone. Right, the more testosterone
33:27
Speaker 2: you have, the more stillone esque you are, the more
33:31
Speaker 2: likely you are to wear like a floor length mink
33:34
Speaker 2: coat with no shirt underneath, which I have to say,
33:37
Speaker 2: if I could wear that, I definitely would, if I
33:39
Speaker 2: could rock that look. It's a good look.
33:41
Speaker 3: And Josh, I think if you remember, I wore that
33:43
Speaker 3: exact coat in the movie, in my film Nighthawks, is
33:46
Speaker 3: that what happens from I think you are mink coat
33:49
Speaker 3: in Nighthawks?
33:50
Speaker 1: Okay, although he was a cop in Nighthawks. You can
33:52
Speaker 1: afford a mink coat.
33:53
Speaker 2: No way, not on a cop salary, not an honest cop,
33:57
Speaker 2: an underrated movie. So is it?
34:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if it holds up great, but
34:02
Speaker 3: I thought it had a pretty good ending. We won't spoil.
34:05
Speaker 2: No, no, it's and it's definitely spoilable for sure.
34:08
Speaker 3: But and that was my st alone. By the way,
34:10
Speaker 3: people are just like, what are you even talking about?
34:12
Speaker 3: Why did Chuck slur there?
34:14
Speaker 2: For a little while, I thought it came through loud
34:15
Speaker 2: and clear. Okay, But the idea is that, like the
34:18
Speaker 2: whole reason the Rambo films were made, particularly two and three,
34:22
Speaker 2: is because Sylvester still own experienced a massive spike in testosterone.
34:26
Speaker 2: It had to get it out in some productive way, right.
34:29
Speaker 1: Oh, I thought it was because Rambo was no expendable.
34:33
Speaker 2: I haven't seen those movies.
34:35
Speaker 1: Huh No, no, no, it was a joke from Rainbow two.
34:38
Speaker 2: Oh well, he was also in the Expendables.
34:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I wonder if that had anything to
34:42
Speaker 1: do with that line.
34:43
Speaker 2: Probably not, It could be at I'm sure there's some
34:47
Speaker 2: people who are like, shut up and talk about aggression
34:51
Speaker 2: in testosterone, you're making me aggressive.
34:54
Speaker 1: Well, what if you knew to a male dog. That's
34:56
Speaker 1: a good sort of first example.
34:57
Speaker 2: That's a great entree, Chuck. Most people would say that
35:02
Speaker 2: if you neuter, if you remove the testicles of a
35:05
Speaker 2: male dog, it's going to become much more submissive, much chiller,
35:09
Speaker 2: probably a lot more fun at parties, will come pick
35:13
Speaker 2: you up if your car breaks down, that kind of thing.
35:16
Speaker 2: And there is some data that shows that that's the case,
35:19
Speaker 2: that some dogs are calmer once they're neutered, But the
35:24
Speaker 2: other studies have shown like the exact opposite is true,
35:28
Speaker 2: that dogs can become actually more aggressive when they're neutered,
35:31
Speaker 2: which is a head scratcher of a puzzler if you
35:34
Speaker 2: ask me.
35:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I just went through this with Gibson,
35:37
Speaker 3: and he's not more aggressive because that's an aggressive is
35:43
Speaker 3: a weird word, because aggressive isn't the same thing as like,
35:46
Speaker 3: you know, heaper now just like an excitable puppy, Like
35:51
Speaker 3: that's not aggression necessarily. Yeah, but it definitely did not
35:55
Speaker 3: chill him out at all.
35:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that it's supposed to, but yeah,
36:00
Speaker 2: I think some people think it does. But the idea
36:03
Speaker 2: that it would make a dog more aggressive, so it
36:06
Speaker 2: had like no impact on him as far as like
36:08
Speaker 2: his energy level is what you're saying. Yeah, so imagine
36:13
Speaker 2: if he was generally like that before and then you
36:16
Speaker 2: neuted him and then he started like biting people. Yeah,
36:18
Speaker 2: that's that's what happens with some dogs. And they're like, well,
36:21
Speaker 2: that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. One of the explanations
36:24
Speaker 2: is is that we think testosterone is tied up with
36:28
Speaker 2: confidence more than aggression, and that a dog that has
36:32
Speaker 2: this chemical confidence removed through neutering can actually become more
36:38
Speaker 2: more nervous, and nervous dogs frequently will bite or bark
36:41
Speaker 2: more than they did when they had confidence via testosterone.
36:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that ties in perfectly to the fact that
36:49
Speaker 3: and this to me is one of the facts of
36:51
Speaker 3: the show. But they have done studies and male athletes,
36:55
Speaker 3: like you know, superior male athletes, actors, it or not,
37:00
Speaker 3: blue collar workers and confidence artists, con men, they all
37:05
Speaker 3: have above average levels of testosterone.
37:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you have it, so too, all right,
37:11
Speaker 2: case closed, So too though, And this is the state
37:14
Speaker 2: of study right now with studying the stuff where we're
37:19
Speaker 2: relating human behavior to hormones like testosterone or estrogen, Like,
37:24
Speaker 2: there's results like that out there, but that we arrive
37:28
Speaker 2: at the question, well, wait a minute, do people who
37:31
Speaker 2: have higher levels of testosterone naturally gravitate to those professions
37:36
Speaker 2: or does being in a profession like acting or being
37:39
Speaker 2: a con man raise your testosterone life? Right, They're like, well,
37:42
Speaker 2: hold on, okay, I got this. We're going to go
37:44
Speaker 2: study prisoners, specifically violent criminal offenders and see what their
37:49
Speaker 2: testosterone levels are.
37:51
Speaker 1: Like.
37:51
Speaker 2: Sure enough, they found that their testosterone levels were above average,
37:56
Speaker 2: But that still raises the question do higher levels of
38:01
Speaker 2: testosterone make you more prone to any social violent behavior?
38:05
Speaker 2: Or does being in prison raise your levels of testosterone.
38:08
Speaker 2: We still don't know at this point.
38:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
38:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty interesting because I think a lot of people,
38:13
Speaker 3: like the generals, just the old way of thinking was like,
38:16
Speaker 3: of course.
38:16
Speaker 2: It does, right, And you know what they're finding, they
38:20
Speaker 2: think is that it's more that testosterone is released when
38:26
Speaker 2: you need it.
38:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it meets the occasion.
38:29
Speaker 2: Right, It's not the thing that's driving the behavior. It's like, oh,
38:32
Speaker 2: this guy says it's go time, we better release some
38:34
Speaker 2: testosterone to keep it going.
38:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, this next thing is super interesting to me. You know,
38:42
Speaker 3: moment to moment throughout your day, you're gonna your testosterone
38:44
Speaker 3: is going to rise and fall some. And they have
38:48
Speaker 3: found that if you lose, like a running race or
38:53
Speaker 3: a one on or a basketball game, or an arm
38:56
Speaker 3: wrestling match, or even a chess match, you will lose testosterone.
39:03
Speaker 3: So it's not even necessarily it can be something as
39:05
Speaker 3: cerebral as a chess match, but losing reduces your testosterone.
39:10
Speaker 3: Winning increases and boosts your testosterone. And they even found
39:15
Speaker 3: this is crazy to me, that they sampled male voters
39:20
Speaker 3: for like an election and just your candidate losing causes
39:25
Speaker 3: a drop in testosterone.
39:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that nuts? That was among McCain voters because
39:32
Speaker 2: it was the two thousand and eight election. Yeah, it's crazy.
39:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it's unbelievable, like winning and losing even
39:39
Speaker 3: if you're not participating other than voting yes.
39:43
Speaker 2: So they also found that they think that social expectations
39:50
Speaker 2: can kind of modulate behavior, right, and this kind of
39:54
Speaker 2: ties into that idea that testosterone kind of helps foster
39:59
Speaker 2: a response rather than triggering a response, right. So essentially
40:04
Speaker 2: what they found is that with testosterone levels, we can
40:08
Speaker 2: correlate it as far as if you are having if
40:11
Speaker 2: you're faced with a fight or flight situation and you
40:14
Speaker 2: choose to fight, you probably are experiencing an up tick
40:18
Speaker 2: in testosterone levels. Again that you didn't have testosterone and
40:22
Speaker 2: now you're choosing to fight. They think the exact opposite
40:25
Speaker 2: is true, that you've chosen to fight and your testosterone
40:28
Speaker 2: levels go up. On the other hand, they found that
40:31
Speaker 2: if you choose to flee or say not be aggressive,
40:34
Speaker 2: your cortisol levels, your stress hormone levels increase. So our
40:39
Speaker 2: response seems to be based on what we think society
40:42
Speaker 2: will either reward or punish, and then based on our
40:46
Speaker 2: decision from that our hormones kick in to help kind
40:49
Speaker 2: of carry out whichever response we decide to go with.
40:52
Speaker 2: So one other thing that I found was that that
40:55
Speaker 2: surprised me is that testosterone isn't just made in like
40:59
Speaker 2: the t testies or the ovaries depending on your sex
41:02
Speaker 2: assigned a birth, but that it's actually made locally in
41:06
Speaker 2: the brain, and that testosterone can also be transformed into
41:10
Speaker 2: different types of estrogen in the brain too, And they
41:13
Speaker 2: think that locally produced is what it's called testosterone in
41:17
Speaker 2: like our neural pathways, has much more of an effect
41:21
Speaker 2: on behavior, mood, that kind of stuff than the stuff
41:24
Speaker 2: that's made in the testes or the ovaries, and that
41:27
Speaker 2: actually accounts for some of the baffling results we've gotten
41:30
Speaker 2: where you know, if you take a blood sample of
41:33
Speaker 2: somebody and find that they were just being aggressive, but
41:37
Speaker 2: their blood doesn't show any kind of spike and testosterone, well,
41:40
Speaker 2: that would account for that because it's not the stuff
41:42
Speaker 2: that's floating around in their blood that's making them do that.
41:45
Speaker 2: It's the locally produced testosterone in their brain that's you know,
41:49
Speaker 2: connecting with their amygdala or something like that it's making
41:52
Speaker 2: that's helping them their aggressiveness, I guess alone.
41:56
Speaker 3: And now I know everyone wants to get to the
41:59
Speaker 3: part about sex and what testosterone does there. And testosterone does,
42:05
Speaker 3: you know, sort of directly ramp up the sex drive
42:07
Speaker 3: in men and women. And they have done trials where
42:11
Speaker 3: they have shown that it increases the libido. But just
42:16
Speaker 3: because your tea falls doesn't necessarily mean it's going to
42:20
Speaker 3: decrease your libido. It can, but it doesn't mean it
42:24
Speaker 3: has to.
42:25
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, Again, that's just there's baffling results we get
42:30
Speaker 2: sometimes from just studies of what we presume has to
42:35
Speaker 2: do with testosterone or estrogen, and it just doesn't quite job.
42:40
Speaker 3: All right, So I guess now we can sort of
42:41
Speaker 3: finish up with some talk of intersex people and where
42:46
Speaker 3: we stand now with hormone therapy, right.
42:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, because one group there's a lot of different people
42:51
Speaker 2: besides postmenopausal or perimenopausal women who take hormone replacement therapy,
42:58
Speaker 2: intersex people, people who are born with ambiguous genditalia. Because
43:02
Speaker 2: like we'd mentioned that whole amazingly intricate dance of chemicals
43:06
Speaker 2: and hormones during development. Fetal development can just take one
43:11
Speaker 2: step to the left or one step to the right,
43:13
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, there's just a different outcome
43:15
Speaker 2: that happens to some people. And some people take hormone
43:18
Speaker 2: replacement therapy to either become more like the gender they
43:24
Speaker 2: presume that they would have been assigned at birth, or
43:26
Speaker 2: the gender that they feel like they were assigned at
43:28
Speaker 2: birth but their genitalia doesn't quite match. There's a lot
43:31
Speaker 2: of different outcomes that are basically considered conditions that you
43:35
Speaker 2: can kind of help alleviate with hormone replacement.
43:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Another one.
43:39
Speaker 3: And I'm pretty sure we talked about this in our
43:42
Speaker 3: female puberty episode. Was starting the nineteen forties, and maybe
43:46
Speaker 3: even before that, estrogen therapy and hormone treatment could help.
43:52
Speaker 3: Basically what they would say, like, you know, you don't
43:55
Speaker 3: want your daughter to grow too tall, so they would
43:58
Speaker 3: use a hormone block. You don't see that as much today.
44:02
Speaker 3: It was called precocious puberty, which is still.
44:04
Speaker 1: A thing that can happen.
44:05
Speaker 3: I think if you enter puberty, I think it's like
44:07
Speaker 3: a year or two two or what's considered too early,
44:10
Speaker 3: or you know, just with outside of the normal range.
44:14
Speaker 3: You can also use these hormone blocking drugs. I mean
44:19
Speaker 3: they still use in today, but that it's not like
44:21
Speaker 3: say you don't grow too tall. It's basically just to
44:23
Speaker 3: save off puberty and to halt precocious puberty in its tracks. Also,
44:28
Speaker 3: if you are a trans kid, you can use a
44:31
Speaker 3: hormone blocker to just sort of hit the pause button
44:34
Speaker 3: to give you a little time to decide what kind
44:36
Speaker 3: of puberty to go through.
44:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, because once you go through puberty, particularly if you
44:42
Speaker 2: think it was the wrong puberty for the gender you
44:45
Speaker 2: identify with, there are going to be changes that are
44:49
Speaker 2: essentially irreversible aside from surgery. Like if you go through
44:53
Speaker 2: female puberty but you're a trans male, you're still going
44:58
Speaker 2: to have breasts that half to be removed. Or if
45:01
Speaker 2: you're a trans woman and you went through male puberty,
45:03
Speaker 2: your vocal cords are gonna think you're gonna have a
45:05
Speaker 2: deeper voice, and maybe an atom's apple surgery will have
45:07
Speaker 2: to remove that. That's how powerful the hormones that get
45:11
Speaker 2: released and the amounts that they get released in during puberty.
45:15
Speaker 2: So if you're not quite sure which gender you belong
45:18
Speaker 2: to yet, using hormone blockers can actually help kind of,
45:22
Speaker 2: like you said, buy you some time until you figure
45:24
Speaker 2: out which way you want to go.
45:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as far as testosterone therapy goes, if you
45:30
Speaker 3: have a deficiency and testosterone because of hypogonatism or maybe
45:35
Speaker 3: from HIV or something like that, it's obviously gonna help
45:39
Speaker 3: with that. Also problems like and here's where it gets
45:42
Speaker 3: a little tricky, depression, low muscle mass, low energy. There's
45:48
Speaker 3: some evidence that can prove sexual function, but not as
45:50
Speaker 3: much that it can increase your low energy if you're
45:53
Speaker 3: just sort of losing testosterone at that normal rate of
45:57
Speaker 3: like one what was it, I can't remember.
46:00
Speaker 2: The one percent a year? I think is it?
46:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, one percent a year. But if you have an
46:06
Speaker 3: actual deficiency, they've shown that it can improve sexual function
46:10
Speaker 3: and just don't have as much proof with energy level.
46:14
Speaker 2: So does that mean that the ad that has Frank
46:16
Speaker 2: Thomas and Doug Flutie in it talking about how they're
46:19
Speaker 2: like crushing their workouts that actually doesn't work. Well.
46:22
Speaker 3: I don't know if they're just saying if they're claiming
46:25
Speaker 3: they're just having natural decline in age, or if they
46:27
Speaker 3: had a deficiency to begin with, because that's that seems
46:30
Speaker 3: to be the differentiating factor.
46:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, Yeah, who knows.
46:34
Speaker 1: I mean, let's call up Doug Flutie in.
46:36
Speaker 2: Let's get him on the horn exactly. Uh, you got
46:39
Speaker 2: anything else?
46:41
Speaker 1: Uh no, I got nothing else.
46:43
Speaker 2: I got nothing else either. This is a very enlightening
46:45
Speaker 2: podcast episode. I should say a lot of stuff I
46:49
Speaker 2: didn't know about, and now I know more, and you
46:51
Speaker 2: still shouldn't take my advice medically speaking. Never since Chuck
46:56
Speaker 2: said never after a nice hearty chuckle, it means it's
46:59
Speaker 2: time for listener may.
47:03
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, I was turned on your show about six
47:05
Speaker 3: months ago and have been rapidly consuming multiple episodes each
47:08
Speaker 3: day going back and forth to work. I heard the
47:12
Speaker 3: school bus yellow episode this morning and thought you might
47:15
Speaker 3: not have found this little nugget you pointed out mister
47:18
Speaker 3: Sear Sire was credited with the standardization. I believe you
47:23
Speaker 3: also noted some other districts had already turned to bright
47:25
Speaker 3: paint jobs on school buses. But on March twenty third,
47:28
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty one, the Pleasant Hill tragedy near town Or,
47:30
Speaker 3: Colorado was because I had a blizzard that came in
47:34
Speaker 3: that morning. School shut down sent the kids home, and
47:36
Speaker 3: one of the school buses ran off the road, stuck
47:39
Speaker 3: in the snow for thirty plus hours. Resulting in the
47:42
Speaker 3: death of five of the twenty students and the bus driver.
47:44
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
47:45
Speaker 3: The aftermath theorized that a brightly painted school bus would
47:48
Speaker 3: have been much easier to spot in the white out
47:50
Speaker 3: and might not have sat waiting so long to be found.
47:53
Speaker 3: So buses in Colorado adopted the yellow standard by nineteen
47:56
Speaker 3: thirty nine, and the proposal for Mister Sire became a
48:01
Speaker 3: national standard. Unfortunately, it was a reactive, not proactive solution,
48:06
Speaker 3: brought on by a spring blizzard on the plains of
48:09
Speaker 3: eastern Colorado. That is from John Colts, and I was
48:13
Speaker 3: just curious John didn't say I guess that.
48:15
Speaker 1: School bus might have been white.
48:17
Speaker 2: I would think so.
48:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, not a great color.
48:20
Speaker 2: No, No, for sure. Thanks a lot, John, That was
48:23
Speaker 2: a really amazing email. I never heard of that one.
48:25
Speaker 2: That's terrible. If you want to bring us down terribly
48:28
Speaker 2: like John did, you can send us an email, wrap
48:31
Speaker 2: it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it
48:33
Speaker 2: off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you
48:39
Speaker 2: Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
48:42
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
48:45
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,